For the past three years, Mr. Nava, one of our 8th-grade US history teachers, has delighted students and staff at Lively Middle School with his presence. His uplifting personality and kind attitude have brought a wave of positivity and personality to this school. Because of this, fellow students deservingly nominated him for the teacher spotlight, and I had the privilege of interviewing him inside his classroom.
Although he has worked at Lively for three years, he has been teaching for nearly a decade! “This is my ninth year, and this will be my third year at Lively Middle School,” says Nava. He claims he has always desired to help and teach others, and his degree pushed him further into this career, stating “…I was studying to be a government major, political science, and then I kind of just started learning about liberal arts” He also says that education “just came naturally to me.”
US history isn’t the only thing he teaches, though. When he began working at Livey, he taught 7th grade Texas History until the beginning of the 2024 semester, when he began teaching 8th grade instead. Now he also teaches Model UN, a magnet program elective. He also loves teaching social studies because he enjoys “having the perspective of helping students find, you know, an answer to a lot of world’s problems and hearing them discuss it and listen to them talk about ‘How do we create a better society?’”
But what exactly is it like in Model UN?, Fellow 8th grader Zacharias Garza answered “We get to learn a lot about different countries and how the United Nations works, and it’s an interesting course that’s going to help me later in life…” “…I’ve been able to look at things from more than one perspective now and see things from other sides of debates and I think that’s important because a lot of people in our society have on way of thinking and they don’t even consider the other side, but having multiple angles to look at it makes you make a better decision when you’re voting.”
He also heavily praises Mr. Nava’s teaching for being patient and effectively motivating his students, an ability many other students also appreciate. Zacharias states “He’s also motivated me because he’s always pushing me to do better because he knows I can, and having somebody have confidence in you like that makes you more calm and more excited to learn.” Fellow student Ilex Chang, who also has him for Model UN, says “I would say he’s one of the teachers I can complain to. I think he knows his students because he’s able to connect with them since he cares for them.”
So, whether you’re a teacher or staff member who has worked with him in the past, or a parent who is currently reading about him for the first time, I believe we can all agree that he is a terrific teacher. He can motivate and push students toward new opportunities and perspectives and has massively improved students’ worldviews across AISD. If you haven’t had him as your teacher before, I hope you can look forward to his class and enjoy learning about multiple different perspectives as he motivates you the whole way.
